


Left Hand of the Divine

by rhoswenmahariel (salutationtothestars)



Series: Left Hand of the Divine [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4050316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salutationtothestars/pseuds/rhoswenmahariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's capable of much more than people give him credit for. They get distracted by the charming smile and the chest hair, and before they know it, they’re shaking hands on deals they never meant to make, sharing secrets they were never meant to tell. Divine Victoria would never have appointed him her Left Hand if she didn’t believe he could use his guild contacts and witty repartee to her advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Hand of the Divine

When Varric comes back to the Grand Cathedral after two weeks of being away, he stops in the quarters appointed to him first. He leaves Bianca, propped up against the wall, as well his pack and all the papers he’d prepared the night before for study. The bed is bare, not ready for his arrival, but he doesn’t mind. He has apartments in the city, outside the cathedral’s gates, and anyway, he’s fairly positive he won’t be staying in this room tonight.

The hallways are deserted, as he would expect them to be in the middle of the night, only a few guards patrolling their routes. They know him now, although he still gets strange looks he’s never quite gotten used to ignoring. He knows none of them can believe it: a man, a dwarf, one of the Divine’s most trusted friends – contacts – advisors? He isn’t sure what the appropriate word is, since being the Left Hand is supposed to be a secret. Nightingale was never very private about what she got up to for her job, but she has the luxury of being terrifying when she wants to be. Varric has never managed much more than vaguely worrying, so far as threat levels go.

Still, he’s capable of much more than people give him credit for. They get distracted by the charming smile and the chest hair, and before they know it, they’re shaking hands on deals they never meant to make, sharing secrets they were never meant to tell. Divine Victoria would never have appointed him her Left Hand if she didn’t believe he could use his guild contacts and witty repartee to her advantage.

And she likes him, he thinks with a smile, one side of too smug even for himself. The novelty of it all hasn’t worn off yet, even a little under a year later. If he counts the time they spent together before she became Divine, stolen moments in narrow Skyhold hallways, and the time before that, a knife in his lap entirely too close to some of his most valuable assets, it’s been even longer. He’s still amazed sometimes that she’s more likely to greet him with a kiss than a fist in his face, which is all he tends to expect from his other associates. Not that he would want kisses from some of the people he works with, but the point stands, he thinks. They’ve come a long way in a comparatively short amount of time. He’s pretty grateful for that.

Outside the Divine’s apartments, there are surprisingly few guards. Varric knows it’s because Cassandra shooed them away, firmly insisting that she could take care of herself in the event of an attack. He knows it’s at least in part because she despises the feeling of being watched. So much of her time is spent in public scrutiny; her downtime –when she has it – doesn’t need to be supervised. Varric doesn’t agree, necessarily, always afraid of the one idiot brave or stupid enough to slip through the cracks. He’s been that idiot before. It does, however, make his life easier. He has less to worry about when no one sees him coming and going at odd hours, spending suspicious amounts of time in the Most Holy’s company. No one ever said there were any rules against fraternizing, but he hardly wants to take his chances.

Varric finds her in the little room she calls her office, the door ajar enough that he barely has to nudge it to fit inside. Her window is open, the summer breeze rustling papers on the desk in a vague, half-hearted sort of way, but she anchors them with her inkwell before going back to work. An exasperated kind of fondness settles low in Varric’s chest. He can only guess how many nights she’s spent up late working since he left, although if he had to, he would put money on “all of them.”

“Isn’t someone supposed to look through those for you?” he asks, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. Cassandra looks up with a start, her brows furrowed. For an instant, her expression clears, a smile touching her lips, but it’s just as quickly replaced with an exhaustion that pulls at her face and drags her head back down.

“They are addressed to Divine Victoria,” she says, dipping her pen in the inkwell and scrawling her signature. “She will read them.”

Varric huffs and crosses the room to stand at her side, peering over her arm at the letters laid out in front of her. Most of them seem to be from clerics around Thedas, although there are seals he doesn’t really recognize. That will be part of his job, eventually, knowing everything that Cassandra knows, but right now, he isn’t sure how she keeps it all straight. Instinctively, she goes to shield his view with her shoulder, nudging him out of the way, but she realizes quickly what she’s doing and relaxes, slumping back into her seat. “It’s considerably past your bedtime, your grace,” Varric half-teases. He reaches past her to gather up the papers scattered everywhere, giving them cursory glances as he makes a pile out of them. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“There is so much to be done,” Cassandra replies, covering her eyes with a hand and rubbing at her temples. “I have little time during the day to take care of everything.”

Not an acknowledgement or a denial, he notes as he stacks everything to one corner of the desk. She’s deflecting, or trying to, but that’s never been something she’s good at. She conveys nearly everything she feels, a myriad of expressions always marching their way across her face as though she has nothing to hide. That’s what he’s for, he supposes, keeping her secrets. Also, keeping her from punching people in the face, but that’s more implied rather than laid out in specifics. When he finishes, she reaches for the letter he left on top, unsigned, but he stops her with a hand on top of her own.

“Cassandra.” Varric moves into her line of sight so that she has to look up at him, for once, the dark circles under her eyes shadowed heavily in the low candlelight. His heart thrums at the way her gaze softens. “You need sleep.”

She doesn’t scoff, as he almost expects her to. She only sighs. “I can’t disappoint these people, Varric,” she says earnestly. “ _My_ people. And I can’t let things go on as they did before.”

He runs his thumb over her wrist, regretting being unable to feel the warmth of her skin through his glove. She’s idealistic, and he naturally knows her romantic streak much better than most others do, but they can usually trust her pragmatism to keep her in check. Evidently, that doesn’t apply after midnight. “You can’t solve all the world’s problems in one night. You know that.”

To his surprise, Cassandra shakes off his grasp and stands, body stiff with what must be hours of sitting. Walking the few paces to the window, she rests her hands on the sill and bows her head. “But I could, Varric, if I wanted to. I could command the faithful to move mountains and rearrange borders. I could throw out the Chant of Light, or declare the sun the moon and the moon a figment of our imagination. People would listen.”

For a moment, Varric isn’t sure what to say. He’s hardly struck dumb, that rarely happens, but what comes to mind first is a sarcastic comment, and what’s second he knows is a useless platitude. Neither of these would do any good. He’s never been the sort of person with these weights on his shoulders, always happier to be the guy in the background writing about it. Power like Cassandra has, like the Inquisitor or Hawke has… he’s not sure what he could do to relieve that burden, if anything. He’s never been sure.

Cassandra breaks the persisting silence with a heavy sigh. “I believe I am where I’m meant to be,” she says, more to herself than to him, “just as I have been all these years, on what I feel is the Maker’s path. But still I doubt.”

“That’s why these people trust you,” Varric says, finally finding his tongue. Cassandra half turns away from the window, raising her eyebrow as her way of asking him to explain. Leaning back against the desk, he folds his arms. “You’re not so confident that you think every decision you make is the right one. You challenge, and you doubt. They admire that in you. I do, too, even if it keeps you up all night and ruins your health.”

“They respect a Divine who does not know what she’s doing?” Cassandra asks, a smile caught at the corner of her lip. Varric grins back.

“They respect one who admits she doesn’t have all the answers. From what I remember about chantry history, that’s a pretty nice change of pace.”

Her laugh is nothing like music, which is often how he catches himself describing laughter in his line of work. It’s more of a throaty chuckle, and comes easier to her than he would have guessed, at first. He remembers the first time he heard it, a good while after their first meeting when he’d been convinced she could do nothing but grunt, snort, and make that funny noise distinctive to her that comes from the back of her throat. He liked it then, thought it suited her, and he likes it now.

When she closes the window, latches it shut and turns away, he knows he’s won her attention. She wavers for a moment, hovering over the candle she has perched rather haphazardly toward the edge of the desk. “Have you brought papers back for me?” she asks, warily eyeing the amount of work she’ll have to do tomorrow. Varric feels almost guilty, but only for a moment. He’s had years of practice burying it.

“A few reports,” he says, waving his hands, “and, more importantly, some rough drafts for the next installments of _Swords and Shields_. I’ll need my best critic’s opinions before I finalize anything. but they can wait until tomorrow.” The almost frightening fire of excitement in Cassandra’s eyes that pops up every time he mentions the series he now considers hers goes out as she realizes what he’s said, replaced by a carefully guarded frown that almost looks like hope.

“Are you staying?”

The night, for a week, years? Forever? They never specify. He smiles. “As long as I can. Maybe longer.”

When she bends to put her lips to his, he’s already anticipated her movements and stretched a little to accommodate her, neck curved at just the right angle, which they found through no small amount of practice. Her hand settles on the line of his jaw; his hands take one of her elbows and settle at her waist. The heat of her mouth against him is like a balm he wasn’t aware he needed, soothing the jagged parts inside him that ache without his understanding or consent, and his mind fogs with the pleasure of it. By the time they make it to the bed, locking her door behind them, his good intentions have somehow flown out the closed window. All he can think of is how to drag her breathy sighs out from where she keeps them locked away. “Seeker,” he whispers against her thigh, “Cassandra,” he pours into her mouth, and for her part, she clutches his hair and says his name, again and again, thanking the Maker for him, a holy and pious thing that, surprisingly, doesn’t feel incongruous at all.

Later, he breathes against her neck and suppresses a jolt of surprise when she speaks, startling him out of a near sleep.

“You called me Seeker,” she says, fondness evident in her voice. Loathe to move too much, Varric settles for pressing a kiss against her collarbone, his arm tightening around her waist.

“It’s what you do,” he replies. “You never stopped.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ao3's vulpineRaconteur for coming up with the idea that sparked this whole thing!


End file.
